Mike Pence Rallies Republicans for Trump in Bucks County
Mike Pence Rallies Voters in Bucks County | Photo by Jared Brey
If Donald Trump hopes to have a fighting chance at winning the White House in November — a prospect that is increasingly far fetched, according to recent polling data — he’ll have to turn up huge numbers in the suburbs of Philadelphia. On Tuesday, his campaign rallied supporters in Bucks County with a speech by Mike Pence, Trump’s running mate and the former governor of Indiana.
The rally was held in a warehouse owned by Worth and Company, a mechanical engineering firm, on Applebutter Road in Pipersville, a few miles north of Doylestown. Before Pence spoke, supporters stood quietly for an invocation, said the pledge of allegiance and sang along to the Star-Spangled Banner. Then they idled and listened to Rolling Stones and Pavarotti tunes while they waited for Pence.
The speech itself was pretty standard fare. Pence talked about ISIS, the military national security, immigration enforcement, and cutting taxes, but didn’t echo Trump’s casual statements about the possibility of Hillary Clinton winning Pennsylvania through voter fraud.
“We want a stronger America,” Pence said. “So let’s decide here and now. Let’s put Pennsylvania on the board in 77 days and make sure Hillary Clinton never becomes president of the United States of America.”
The room didn’t really have the raucous, occasionally menacing vibe that Trump rallies are reported to have. It was pretty well attended, but not full. There were some notable T-shirts though. One announced that the wearer was a proud member of President Barack Obama’s “Enemy List.” One kid who couldn’t have been older than 20 was wearing a “Reagan – Bush ’84” shirt.
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Supporters chanted “Lock her up!” and “Hooah!” and several times they turned around to boo at reporters, who Pence repeatedly attacked for what he called a misrepresentation of Trump. But Pence, who was fresh off a haircut in Norristown, didn’t talk a whole lot about Pennsylvania aside from an oblique reference to “the great conservative traditions of this state — you know whereof I speak.”
He beat up on Clinton for her handling of her email scandal and her handling of the attack in Benghazi, but mostly he pumped up Trump.
“He hears the aspirations and perspirations of the American people more clearly than any president of my lifetime, since Ronald Reagan,” Pence said.
“When he does his talking, he doesn’t go tip-toeing around the thousands of rules of political correctness.”
“When Donald Trump becomes President of the United States of America his only special interest will be the people of the United States of America.”
Politico named Bucks County among 25 key battleground counties in the presidential election, and featured Levittown as The Suburb That Could Flip The House — depending on what its voters think of Trump.
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